This article talks about three different panels that all talked about now to re-balance the inequality of education for the No Child Left Behind Act. the first panel discussed the comparability provision which contains regulations on how to fund schools both on the state and local level. These funds were designed to provide funding on an already equal level of funding of schools and since school funding was previously unequal based on varying amounts of money different states spend on education, the act did not help fix the initial problem. The comparability provision also contained a loophole which makes it ineffective in mandating fiscal equality between schools within a district. The Second panel discussed the loophole of the compatibility provision. Districts need to report their budgets using average teachers salaries for the entire district in order to receive federal funding that is intended to supplement local funding. Since the districts report their budget by their entire district and not by individual schools, the districts will be able to receive a certain sum of federal funds and distribute it however they like within their district and not provide an adequate amount of funds to schools that will need them within the district.
This article talk about a study in which 50 different states fund their K-12 public education and each states outcomes of their NAEP scores focusing on 4th grade reading and 8th grade math skills. This study found a significant correlation between how much the state government spends per pupil and achievement of students especially lower income students. The study found that for lower income 4th grade students a 1,000$ per pupil funding increase correlated with a .42 point increase in 4th grade students reading levels. The study also correlated that this increase in NAEP scores is based off the greater proportion of total public spending covered by a state rather than federal money. This was shown in 8th grade math scores in which a one point improvement in NAEP scores correlated with an increase of 20 percentage points in the state share of spending. This article only points out correlations and to me correlation does not imply causation so the information presented in this article may not have a solid basis.
This article points out the fact that equitable spending between states is not currently occurring with some states being able to spend more on education than other states based on how much income they receive. It also points out how much spending varies from state to state per student such as New Jersey which spends 9,700$ per student per year compared to Mississippi that spent 3,700$ per student each year. This issue is caused by the variations between states such as living costs being higher in some states rather than others so the annual salary a teacher receives in that state would be higher. A system that provides equal federal funding for students needs to be more directed to states that spend less money per student due to their inability to generate as much income as wealthier states. The amount of money states are granted should be based on their total personal income per enrolled student or "PIPS". This would cause states with more students enrolled in them that receive less overall income to receive more federal aid.
This article was chosen just to provide a better understanding about where federal funding for schools comes from. Most U.S. school funding is provided at the local or state level with the average amount of federal funding a district receives being around 12 percent, Which the largest of support programs which said lower income students and students with disabilities. The article also mentions how the budget cuts during the recession hit the lower income students and students with disabilities the most because they receive the bulk of federal funding each year. The article also mentions how local funding, which is the bulk of funding a school district receives, comes primarily from property tax. Since property tax in suburban and wealthy neighborhoods is much higher than in urban ares, the amount of money a state is able to provide for schools is higher in areas with more affluent students who do not need the money as much as students in poor urban areas do. This is a major reason why money that is given to schools thorugh the federal government needs to be aimed at urban schools that need the money the most because they do not receive as much as the state as an affluent district would.
This website stresses the qualities urban schools posses and that they make up a substantial number of the schools in this country and how they are highly at risk of funding inequalities. Much of this website explains facts that are now obvious to us such as the fact that urban environments contain a higher percentage of poor and minority students, students that are more likely to know a different language going into school, and student in urban areas are more likely to switch schools more times and students in suburban areas. This article really provides many useful statistics such as approximately 40% of urban students attend schools with high poverty concentration compared to the 10% of suburban students and 25% of rural students who attend such schools. Another useful statistic is in 1999, 17% of Americans age 5 to 24 were from families which the primary language spoken was not English. Sixty-five percent of these students’ families speak Spanish.
Overall Reaction to Your Research
The research I have conduced points to the fact that schools that are in urban environments and schools that are troubled with low income students are not funded equally and are not funded fairly. Schools mainly receive their income from the state which receives that money mostly from the districts income tax. Schools in lower income districts raise less money in the form of income tax to the state, the schools in those areas do not receive as much funding from the state in proportion to more affluent districts with a higher income tax. Initially this seems like a completely unfair system because less money is being sent to the troubled students who need it, however this is where the factor of federal funding comes in. This issue becomes even more complicated when it is realized that a similar thing is happening on a state level where poorer states are not able to spend as much per student because their total state income is below an average national level. Federal funding accounts for a much smaller percent of funding a school revives however it is an important portion of funding urban schools receive. Federal funding is given to almost all schools however, is mostly directed to schools that perform poorly and do not spend as much on a district level to provide them with more support they need to equalize the quality of education their students receive. Funding should be directed to each school based on need which is what federal is attempting to do, however schools that do not need as much money due to an affluent student body are reviving the most amount of money based on their location. To balance this, federal funding is mainly directed to schools with higher poverty rates and students who need more consistent attention due to their backgrounds and special needs such as language barriers. Because some urban schools are particularly troubled and require extra aid due to special student conditions, they require even more funding and all other schools to provide adequate education for the students within them. There is also a states "PIPS" or personal income per student that needs to be taken account when directing federal funding because more needs to be directed to states that spend less overall on education due to the fact that the states do not generate that much revenue in tax.
How does this research help us identify or refine a strategy to improve schools in Rhode Island?
What I learned in my research informs efforts to reform schools in Rhode Island by explaining that more funding should be directed to schools that are more troubled due to the special conditions of their student populations, more specifically schools in urban environments. Not all urban schools require more special funding than they are already receiving however there are certain schools that are more troubled than others and require more direct funding to provide an equal opportunity for their students and make their funding fair. A way to ensure that these schools receive the funding they need to provide their students with an equal opportunity is to ensure that the state distributes federal funds received for their districts to the most needy schools within that district. For example the most needy districts receive the most federal funding receive that funding based on the district's spending as an average whole, but if funding was distributed to districts based on the individual school performances within the districts then the most troubled schools can be more easily identified and funding can be more directly focused toward them to aid the students.
Author: Adam Sokolowski
Editorial or Opinion:
13, June, and 2008. “Equal Funding for School Districts: Improving Comparability Requirements.” Name. Accessed November 14, 2014. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/news/2008/06/13/4535/equal-funding-for-school-districts-improving-comparability-requirements/
This article talks about three different panels that all talked about now to re-balance the inequality of education for the No Child Left Behind Act. the first panel discussed the comparability provision which contains regulations on how to fund schools both on the state and local level. These funds were designed to provide funding on an already equal level of funding of schools and since school funding was previously unequal based on varying amounts of money different states spend on education, the act did not help fix the initial problem. The comparability provision also contained a loophole which makes it ineffective in mandating fiscal equality between schools within a district. The Second panel discussed the loophole of the compatibility provision. Districts need to report their budgets using average teachers salaries for the entire district in order to receive federal funding that is intended to supplement local funding. Since the districts report their budget by their entire district and not by individual schools, the districts will be able to receive a certain sum of federal funds and distribute it however they like within their district and not provide an adequate amount of funds to schools that will need them within the district.
Magazine Article:
Puckett, Marin Gjaja, J., and Matt Ryder. “Equity Is the Key to Better School Funding - Education Week.” Education Week, February 19, 2014. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/02/19/21puckett.h33.html.
This article talk about a study in which 50 different states fund their K-12 public education and each states outcomes of their NAEP scores focusing on 4th grade reading and 8th grade math skills. This study found a significant correlation between how much the state government spends per pupil and achievement of students especially lower income students. The study found that for lower income 4th grade students a 1,000$ per pupil funding increase correlated with a .42 point increase in 4th grade students reading levels. The study also correlated that this increase in NAEP scores is based off the greater proportion of total public spending covered by a state rather than federal money. This was shown in 8th grade math scores in which a one point improvement in NAEP scores correlated with an increase of 20 percentage points in the state share of spending. This article only points out correlations and to me correlation does not imply causation so the information presented in this article may not have a solid basis.
Scholarly or Professional Journal:
Richard, R. "New Federal Roles in Education" Center on Education Policy http://libserver.jsie.edu.cn/sites/default/files/file/0021.pdf#page=37
This article points out the fact that equitable spending between states is not currently occurring with some states being able to spend more on education than other states based on how much income they receive. It also points out how much spending varies from state to state per student such as New Jersey which spends 9,700$ per student per year compared to Mississippi that spent 3,700$ per student each year. This issue is caused by the variations between states such as living costs being higher in some states rather than others so the annual salary a teacher receives in that state would be higher. A system that provides equal federal funding for students needs to be more directed to states that spend less money per student due to their inability to generate as much income as wealthier states. The amount of money states are granted should be based on their total personal income per enrolled student or "PIPS". This would cause states with more students enrolled in them that receive less overall income to receive more federal aid.
Summary Article:
“Education.” CQ Researcher by CQ Press. Accessed November 17, 2014. http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqr_ht_education_2014.
This article was chosen just to provide a better understanding about where federal funding for schools comes from. Most U.S. school funding is provided at the local or state level with the average amount of federal funding a district receives being around 12 percent, Which the largest of support programs which said lower income students and students with disabilities. The article also mentions how the budget cuts during the recession hit the lower income students and students with disabilities the most because they receive the bulk of federal funding each year. The article also mentions how local funding, which is the bulk of funding a school district receives, comes primarily from property tax. Since property tax in suburban and wealthy neighborhoods is much higher than in urban ares, the amount of money a state is able to provide for schools is higher in areas with more affluent students who do not need the money as much as students in poor urban areas do. This is a major reason why money that is given to schools thorugh the federal government needs to be aimed at urban schools that need the money the most because they do not receive as much as the state as an affluent district would.
Reputable Website or Blog Entry:
Urban Education : Funding. Retrieved November 11, 2014, from http://sitemaker.umich.edu/rosman.356/funding_
This website stresses the qualities urban schools posses and that they make up a substantial number of the schools in this country and how they are highly at risk of funding inequalities. Much of this website explains facts that are now obvious to us such as the fact that urban environments contain a higher percentage of poor and minority students, students that are more likely to know a different language going into school, and student in urban areas are more likely to switch schools more times and students in suburban areas. This article really provides many useful statistics such as approximately 40% of urban students attend schools with high poverty concentration compared to the 10% of suburban students and 25% of rural students who attend such schools. Another useful statistic is in 1999, 17% of Americans age 5 to 24 were from families which the primary language spoken was not English. Sixty-five percent of these students’ families speak Spanish.
Overall Reaction to Your Research
The research I have conduced points to the fact that schools that are in urban environments and schools that are troubled with low income students are not funded equally and are not funded fairly. Schools mainly receive their income from the state which receives that money mostly from the districts income tax. Schools in lower income districts raise less money in the form of income tax to the state, the schools in those areas do not receive as much funding from the state in proportion to more affluent districts with a higher income tax. Initially this seems like a completely unfair system because less money is being sent to the troubled students who need it, however this is where the factor of federal funding comes in. This issue becomes even more complicated when it is realized that a similar thing is happening on a state level where poorer states are not able to spend as much per student because their total state income is below an average national level. Federal funding accounts for a much smaller percent of funding a school revives however it is an important portion of funding urban schools receive. Federal funding is given to almost all schools however, is mostly directed to schools that perform poorly and do not spend as much on a district level to provide them with more support they need to equalize the quality of education their students receive.Funding should be directed to each school based on need which is what federal is attempting to do, however schools that do not need as much money due to an affluent student body are reviving the most amount of money based on their location. To balance this, federal funding is mainly directed to schools with higher poverty rates and students who need more consistent attention due to their backgrounds and special needs such as language barriers. Because some urban schools are particularly troubled and require extra aid due to special student conditions, they require even more funding and all other schools to provide adequate education for the students within them. There is also a states "PIPS" or personal income per student that needs to be taken account when directing federal funding because more needs to be directed to states that spend less overall on education due to the fact that the states do not generate that much revenue in tax.
How does this research help us identify or refine a strategy to improve schools in Rhode Island?
What I learned in my research informs efforts to reform schools in Rhode Island by explaining that more funding should be directed to schools that are more troubled due to the special conditions of their student populations, more specifically schools in urban environments. Not all urban schools require more special funding than they are already receiving however there are certain schools that are more troubled than others and require more direct funding to provide an equal opportunity for their students and make their funding fair. A way to ensure that these schools receive the funding they need to provide their students with an equal opportunity is to ensure that the state distributes federal funds received for their districts to the most needy schools within that district. For example the most needy districts receive the most federal funding receive that funding based on the district's spending as an average whole, but if funding was distributed to districts based on the individual school performances within the districts then the most troubled schools can be more easily identified and funding can be more directly focused toward them to aid the students.